


of human rituals and alarm clocks

by NaroMoreau



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awake the Snake (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Humanity (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's alarm goes off, First Kiss, Getting Together, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, July is here, Light Angst, M/M, No beta we fall like Crowley, Pining, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24990706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau
Summary: In the current state of the world alarming measures are being taken. A demon sleeps his heart away and an angel tries to figure out who he is without Heaven at his back.Crowley's alarm was set to July and the time is off, Aziraphale is asking for help but what the hell is that supposed to mean? They have to figure out things together or not at all.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 161
Collections: AwakeTheSnake





	of human rituals and alarm clocks

**Author's Note:**

> There may be some mistakes, english is not our first language. Sorry!

“Fuck.”

After the first five minutes of whirring, jarring noise, Crowley gives up on sleeping. He swats at the nightstand, too drowsy to miracle anything and not ending up accidentally growing a leg to the neighbor's cat until he finally manages to knock the bloody alarm off.

It takes him a while to get used to the dim light seeping inside the room despite the curtains; everything looking blurred and liquified the first minutes after waking up.

He finally reaches for his shades. 

“ _Better_.”

He takes a first deep breath to get things going, and his body starts calibrating and switching to human metabolism again. 

Heart? Check

Lungs? Check

Stomach? Check

Brain? 

_Ngk. Why would you?_

He stands up and forces his brain to take a detour from his usual route to skirt around everything tartan-ish and cream colored and save himself from that usual constrictive feeling, starting in his chest and radiating down to his toes. Like he got past sloughing time and a skin shed is vitaly needed. 

That is, for about ten minutes. 

He plops and all but lounges on the throne, limbs thrown carelessly like a shabby puppet, definitely _not_ sulking, and he hates July so much already. 

A buzz breaks the chain of thoughts he was starting to form and perhaps it's for the best because it's not yet noon and he's too sober and apparently two months are not enough to get over the feeling of wanting to climb the walls out of pure embarrassment.

_'I could slither over and watch you eat cake…'_

Ugh. Stupid-- just stupid. He fights the impulse to scream his lungs off and scare the shit out of his entire building complex and sets for anxiously pacing around the flat, berating his sheer idiocy. 

The _thought_ slids into his mind uninvited. 

_'I'll see you when this is all over.'_

Because that's just what Aziraphale does. It had always been like that, a seesaw of give and take, always inching to a middle point. A balance that's never achieved. 

It really shouldn't bother him in the slightest. It's like expecting the Earth to change its course or the sun to set east and yeah, that's the point. Worst, ridiculous bit was he _had_ hoped, cracking the little kernel inside him where he used to store every almost touch and unsaid word and now it's empty and--

_Just finish the bloody job, would you?_

It's been six thousand years and every resolution just hangs, suspended in uncertainty, festering inside Crowley until there's a point where he's just walking sepsis. Fitting for a demon, he thinks. 

Not that he would ever hold that against the angel. They'd stormed through Armageddon together but Aziraphale doesn't owe him a thing. 

Not a word.

Not a touch 

Not even a happy fucking _finale_. 

The irony doesn't escape Crowley. For being head over heels for Jane Austen's novels, Aziraphale makes a terrible Mr. Darcy. 

The persistent buzz vibrates again along the sleek surface of his desk and catches his attention before he can decide what level of fucked up is to even consider moving to the States. Maybe just to visit. 

He ignores the thousand notifications from social media, and stares intently at the single message capable of making his heart race and his palms sweat.

" _Hello, dear. I was wondering if you were awake already. Things have changed, slightly so, and in three days some restrictions are easing off_."

Crowley frowns, his whole face stuck in baffled hope. Pathetic to boot. He hasn’t been awake for an hour and he wants to fall backwards into that nest of cowardice he calls bed and bury himself there till december. Like a fucking pharaoh. 

" _Perhaps you could slither over? I'm in dire need of your help, whenever you can. Hope to see you soon_."

It tells a lot about the bleary state of his mind or perhaps about how stupid a demon he is, that the part about _dire need_ has him trying to bend reality to flop into the bookshop like some sort of occult action hero because a pang of fear at the idea of Aziraphale being in danger always sends him reeling, until he realizes that _whenever you can_ is the added disclaimer. 

Right.

Probably more cake to eat, or groceries to shop or an ATM to visit because Crowley’s always the designated driver and who is he trying to convince, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Help. _I need your help_. Isn't that cute?

A small spike of anger rises up his throat at how the mere idea of resuming the natural course of things feels so _off_. 

But it's not.

Because they're friends and that's what friends do. So he tries and barely succeeds in blocking Aziraphale's last words: the ominous finality, the gush of ice cold water over him at a no that should've been expected. 

He miracles himself a bourbon and downs it with the slight and misplaced hope it's going to be enough. 

Crowley shakes his head to loosen the ideas and puffs a sigh. 

Three days still.

He miracles the whole bottle and drags it to the bed as grave good and sets a new alarm.

* * *

Crowley leans on the door jamb kind of like giving up mid-leaning. Vertical sprawling more like it. "Still on a baking rampage?"

"Oh, good Lord, no!" Aziraphale guides him inside the bookshop that looks the same, and smells the same and feels exactly the same; like someone just turned on a whole set of Christmas lights in the darkest part of him, a bonfire to suffuse his cold relentless blackness. "After the fortieth batch of angel cake I figured I'd done enough."

"You could've told me what you wanted my help for, angel," Crowley says and allows the slightest tint of chastisement dye his voice.

He's already sipping his much needed miracled wine, surly face and all, ensconced in the century old sofa which has no right to be far more comfortable than his actual bed. 

"I apologize, dear." Aziraphale sits at his desk, a very old worn out book open in front of him. "It's something silly, honestly." 

"Spit it out."

"Well, you see, I'm writing my memories and I thought--"

Crowley's more rebellious brow jumps up to his hairline. "Your what?"

Aziraphale wiggles in his seat and clears his throat. "My memories."

"Are you planning to include six thousand years of barely verifiable facts?"

Aziraphale glares at him over the line of his unnecessary glasses like an overbearing principal. "Anyway," he says, ignoring his input with mastered ease. "I'm in the 18th century and--"

"You got the rest covered already?"

"Why, yes," Aziraphale says, "while you were napping."

Crowley isn't quite sure why but the statement makes him feel a wee bit guilty, which is entirely ridiculous because Aziraphale has never cared about his fondness for sleeping before.

"Ok." Crowley leans forward. "But why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"I mean why? It's not like you're gonna sell it-- send it to HarperCollins, right? Bit hard to pass it as non fiction if you claim to have snogged Oscar Wilde," Crowley says. "And Lord Byron."

It's a bit idiotic but he'd never got over Aziraphale's infatuation with those two, and centuries later he still finds himself turning in a boiling puddle of jealousy and ire at the thought of it. 

Even more knowing he could have prevented the last lest not have been _napping_. 

Again, oh, the irony. 

_Perish the thought._

"I did not!" Aziraphale puffs his cheeks, face splotched red. "It was a perfectly innocent friendship."

"Right." He waves what he considers is a disinterested hand and keeps on the assault. “Still, why?”

Aziraphale wrings his hands, and Crowley realizes something _looks_ rather off. He embarks on the mental game of spot the difference on Aziraphale’s entire self which he has memorized for _no particular reason_ over the course of too many suns and so few moons and congratulates himself for his temperance. Quite a demon he is. 

He stares for a few seconds when it finally dawns on him.

"Aziraphale, _where's_ your ring?"

"What?" 

The angel seems particularly skittish, his mouth curling in that sort of nervous twitch that wants to resemble a smile failing completely. Crowley's gut plummets down to his snake boots.

"You heard me. Your ring. Where's at?"

Aziraphale seems to ponder something for a moment before heaving a put-upon sigh. "Oh well," he says sounding completely deflated, "it happened just before you went to sleep." He stands up and starts puttering about, which already tells Crowley whatever it is, it's far from fine. Busy mind, busy hands, that's just how Aziraphale works. "Lots of things kept changing, I'm still an angel you see, but I seem to not have a place in Heaven anymore, and I shouldn't… the ring simply vanished one day."

"Vanished?"

"Yes, but it's quite alright, dear. I mean, there's no harm and no reason to fret at- at all." 

Aziraphale titters, and shelves a bible next to a first edition of _Faust_ and Crowley has the delicacy not to mention that he indeed looks rather stricken. 

"How many other things have _vanished,_ angel?" 

"Oh you know, this and that."

"Care to be more specific?"

Aziraphale whirls and makes a face that encompassess misery in all its extension. It takes a fang breaking Crowley’s lip to rein in his deep desire to secure Aziraphale in his arms, in his wings, in whatever part of him that can shield him from whatever this is. 

"All the notes of previous assignments, my choir assigned amulet, and-- the robe you met me with."

Aziraphale tries to say it smoothly but the little spike of pain at the very end pulls at Crowley's heartstrings. _Fuck_ . Crowley wants to punch someone, lamenting in retrospective the trial hadn't ended with three positively charred archangels. He sees right through the whole charade, all those celestial arses wanting to punish the angel, _his angel_ , for getting away. It wasn't enough to have wished him gone, now they were nitpicking ways to make him miserable.

And everything for being right.

Talking about sore losers. 

"Angel, why didn't you tell me about it?" He says and tries to control the worry to ooze from his voice. 

"Ah, I didn't want to bother you with my grievances, because really, there's nothing that can be done about it," Aziraphale says apologetic, as if sharing that was an awful disservice to Crowley. "You have your own things and then you went to sleep and I suppose I just forgot."

"You _forgot_ ," Crowley says straining the t. 

"Yes, so then I said to myself, Aziraphale you're retired, you belong to humanity now, so what would a human do?" 

Aziraphale takes a few steps with renewed vigor that seems altogether too forced, just _wrong_ , all of him stretching too taut. 

"What indeed."

"And I got it. Writing my memories! But I'm stuck in the 18th century just when we met Tartini and I wanted to ask you, but you were _asleep--_ "

Aziraphale sits at his desk and his smile is strained and his knuckles white, and his voice's fraying. Too frenzied.

Beside himself with panic.

 _Oh. Oh no_.

Crowley stands up and reaches Aziraphale's side in three strides. "Hey, angel, it's alright," he says kneeling next to the ethereally spooked principality.

"No, no, it's not!"

Slowly, like water drilling through stone, Crowley's brain gets there.

Aziraphale just got the divine equivalent of having the rug pulled from under his celestial Oxfords. 

Constant and steadfast in his loyalty, caring and loving and just trying his _Best_ , when everyone around him had dropped on that concept aeons ago and they just-- 

Labeled him undeserving. 

And the only other being on his side, the one who could’ve just _be_ there, to lend an ear, a glass of wine, something, anything, just went and took ship in a bimonthly shut eye. 

Crowley, Original Tempter, Serpent of Eden. _Bloody Fucking Stupid, more like it._

"Yes, it is." Crowley sighs. "Look, I'm not going to claim to understand because I don't-- I'm actually quite alright having Hell off my back--"

"Me too! I can't bear Heaven, but--"

"Exactly. But." Crowley tries very hard not to think about what he's about to do and takes one of Aziraphale's hands in his own before the will whiters inside him. To his surprise the angel squeezes it lightly and turns to face him. "It's okay to miss it angel, even if they don't deserve it, that's not a bad thing and I'm-- I'm _sorry_."

"Oh, you don't have to apologize, dearest." 

"No, I do, I-- I just, er, I never realized--" Crowley knows it's probably like shooting himself on the foot, but he takes his glasses off. Aziraphale is looking at him, right to his eyes, and he owes him more than some kind of fucked up Narcissus experience. "It was-- It wasn't my best move going to sleep leaving you like that."

"No, no, Crowley, don't say that! I'm not blaming you." 

_Well, yeah, I am._

"You should," he says and takes a gulp of air because if he has dragged himself this far and Aziraphale is here, actually confiding in him, then at least he can return the courtesy. "Listen angel, I was pretty fucking peeved you didn't want to see me--"

"Oh, but I did!" Aziraphale says as if anything, making Crowley's heart go rabbit-quick. "It was just that I was-- I _am_ trying to abide by human's rules because, dear me, Earth is all I have. And if I fail? Well then, it's like I don't belong anywhere is it?"

Aziraphale sits there amidst a disquieting silence and Crowley clenches his jaw, because his hand is now between Aziraphale's both and it feels warm, and good, and a million other things that spike up and recede too fast for him to pinpoint them.

"We-- we still have our own side," Crowley offers and Aziraphale's eyes glint with mirth, so he follows. "You and me, er, we have each other."

Aziraphale chews his lower lip and Crowley is tempted-- 

_Turnabout is fair play, my ass._

"I can't possibly ask more of you, Crowley."

_Yes, yes you can! Ask, demand, ransack me..._

"That's the thing angel," he says patting himself on the shoulder at how good he's been at hiding how badly he wants to expose himself. _Heh_. "You aren't asking, I'm offering."

After so many years, reading Aziraphale's face is as easy as riding the Bentley, even better because he doesn't need miracles, that's just him, that's just Crowley's doing, and right now he sees the angel is actually considering it. So he waits. Because that's another thing he does best.

“Well, if you want me to be honest, I _really_ would like to see you more often," Aziraphale says finally.

"Done," Crowley splutters. 

"I am serious."

"So am I."

"Sometimes you go years without even saying a word and then I find out you were just napping, while I worry to death."

There's food for thought like in a fucking buffet in that statement but, _ngk_ , not the time. 

"Aziraphale, no more long naps, got it."

"Not like that,” Aziraphale bristles and for the life of him Crowley can’t stop thinking in how much he loves this absolute absurdness of an angel. “I don't want you to stop doing things just for my sake, if you need to sleep do it, it’s just..” He sighs. “I want to make sure you’re safe-- I have a perfectly good bed upstairs and it would be easier for me--"

Something in Crowley’s stomach knots in response. "You are asking me to sleep here?"

"Only if you have to--" 

Aziraphale goes the most delicious shade of pink and Crowley makes the monumental effort to block effectively the foreseen results manifesting in nether regions. 

"Aziraphale your bedroom is full of books. You need that space, I get the sentiment but I won’t mess with your books." 

“Well, perhaps we can look for another place, where you can have a place to sleep and I can have a place for my books," Aziraphale says, "that is if you are amenable-- we can share the same space… _live together_."

Crowley's brain goes defunct, so Crowley's mouth, lacking the rider, goes silent and gaping.

Aziraphale in response, goes cherry red. 

"I'm-- I'm so sorry my dear, that was a terrible idea."

"No, no, angel!" Crowley croaks desperately, like a castaway trying to catch some water before it slips through his fingers. "That's an idea, good idea, great idea--," he says, tuning down his blaring enthusiasm to something more relaxed out of self preservation. "We could save miracles and keep lending a hand when need it you know." He shrugs.

Crowley forces the light flame of hope to die, because as much as it feels good, _so damn good_ , this doesn't change a thing between them.

And now he's starting to question his own idiotic judgment because they're going to share a space and breakfasts, and cosy afternoons and one day he's going to stroll into the kitchen only to find Aziraphale already there, disheveled hair, pink cheeks, breathtaking as ever--

_And oh, how evil contains the seeds of its own stupid, bloody destruction. Or, can one discorporate from sheer yearning?_

Aziraphale is smiling at him, an honest to _Someone_ smile, and his brain takes it as cue to go in that usual roundabout swaying from Aziraphale's lips, glistening because he’s just _that_ lucky, to that soft, fluffy hair and the eyes, bless Satan, those eyes--

And then Crowley feels like he absolutely stepped off a cliff. 

To land in the fucking moon. 

Aziraphale’s hands are at both sides of his face, his mouth pressing against every single inch of Crowley’s own, and his brain already working at full capacity, scrambles to keep up the pace. It’s soft and warm and a bit damp and also everything that Crowley has desired since the literal dawn of time. 

But he realizes a second too late he’s gone brain dead and Aziraphale has taken the stiffness as a too noticeable rebuke. 

“I’m-- I’m so so terribly sorry,” Aziraphale says, lips red, pulling away and making Crowley give a sharp gasp that’s just an echo of the wreck inside him. “I shouldn’t-- I just-- I thought--”

 _Now, now!_

And so, Crowley plunges, directly onto Aziraphale’s mouth. 

Later, Aziraphale would describe it as pouncing, and perhaps Crowley did pounce but in his defense, six thousand years of pining makes one hell of a fucking fuel. 

He combs long fingers through that sand-blond hair, feeling the favor returned, and tentatively, a warm, deft tongue pushes inside Crowley’s mouth. He doesn’t even realizes he’s been kneeling for what seems decades now, so he stands, pulling Aziraphale closer, resisting to let him go. 

And Aziraphale, the one who once uttered a sorrowful “ _You go too fast for me_ ” is pushing him to the blessed sofa and Crowley can’t wrap his brain around it and maybe it's for the best or his limbs could stop working altogether.

There's more kissing, breaths echoing and dying in each other's mouths and tongues canvassing every space forbidden for so long. 

Finally Aziraphale pulls away, and Crowley is still quite content because there's a hand lingering on his waist, another draped on his leg. 

“I feel a lot better now,” Aziraphale says.

“Only took some snogging uh?” Crowley says a bit out of breath, which makes everything a hundred percent better in his books. “I didn't even think you knew how to do that.”

"Well, you see my dear, I've been reading about human customs quite abundantly may I add," Aziraphale says with the air of someone explaining a high art. "And it is quite common when making a decision as vital as the one we made, to seal it with a kiss and I thought-- well I thought it'd be quite fitting."

Crowley's still too high on angel bliss to make words work. “Wahoo for the humans, I guess.” 

“Well, yes. _Wahoo,"_ Aziraphale says, his mouth crooking up. " I never thought our side would include this, as much as I would’ve liked it from the very beginning.”

“The only thing you had to do was ask, angel.”

"That sounds rather easy now, isn't it?"

Aziraphale brings their foreheads together so Crowley can revel in every single whiff of blessed scent now at his disposal. 

“So, are we really doing this, living together?” Crowley finally asks, because he needs to hear it clear as day, every syllable, every letter, every sentence as it should. 

“Yes, love,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley stows that too for future dissection. “After all, that’s what humans do when they _love_ each other. _We can have a home.”_

 _Love each other._ Crowley curls his toes not to get drowned by that tidal wave of swirling emotions.

Softly, the gramophone starts playing Dvorak's _New World Symphony_ and Crowley chuckles because angelic joke aside he has to give it to the angel. It is quite fitting.

"Nice," he says, choking on hopes.

"I thought you would approve."

They share another kiss, less frantic, edges of need subdued, any traces of past woe-begone feelings hovering over them just--

 _Vanished_.

It's Crowley the one who pulls away this time. 

"So angel, care to share more bits of human knowledge?” 

Aziraphale wiggles in his spot, giving him that smile reserved for especially good desserts. 

“Oh my dear boy, there's so much I can show you.” 

  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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